Lord grant us honesty, but not just yet!

Great NY Times article on Mexico with the headline, Mexico's Government is blocking its own Anti-Corruption Drive"!

This of course is the ultimate dog bites man story, especially under the current EPN government. Mexico has long been a country with beautiful laws that are not worth the paper they are printed on, and EPN is notorious for announcing major reforms to great fanfare that go nowhere.

But on to the specifics. How is the government blocking the corruption commission, you ask?


None of the 18 judges who are supposed to oversee anti-corruption cases have been appointed by lawmakers. The prosecutor empowered under the new system to pursue investigations independently has not been named. And members of the citizen commission say they have been routinely shut out of discussions about big corruption cases.

“It is a bad joke,” said Luis Manuel Perez de Acha, a tax lawyer on the commission. “I was naïve when the system launched. I believed and had hope that it would work.”

“I know now that they are trying to sabotage everything we do,” he added.


Here's a good summary. The guy gets it in the end. The system isn't broken, it's working exactly how the government intended.


“The Mexican government feeds us placebos and we believe they will cure us,” said Juan Pardinas, the president of the Mexico Institute for Competitiveness and one of the chief architects of the anti-corruption system. “I drank the Kool-Aid and I passed the jar to a lot of people, believing it was a path to change.”

Mr. Pardinas has been one of the most prominent public voices fighting corruption, its corrosive effect on democratic institutions, and the lives it sometimes claims. He ultimately became a target of the spying technology purchased by the Mexican government to surveil criminals and terrorists.

“I killed myself for three years to achieve this, and it’s basically broken,” he said of the anti-corruption effort. “Well, maybe the system isn’t broken. It’s actually working perfectly to allow impunity.”

a very good start: Mexican Mayoral edition

This week,  a dog peed on the Mayor of Guadalajara.

We have got to get this going up here north of the border!

Or, As Charlie Sheen Would Call It: "Thursday"

A heartwarming story.

Young man decides to commit suicide, goes to Mexico.  Spends his money on drugs and hookers.

Wakes up and thinks, "Wow, that was fun!  Now  I have a reason for living!  I want to make enough money so I can do this again soon!"

Or something like that.

Nod to Angry Alex.

Wow! They Just Made It Up!

The U.S. government found it could not mistreat Mexicans enough under the actual U.S. law.  So they used a provision of the "Mexican Constitution" to make it easier to abuse people under Mexican law.

But they. just. made. it. up.

I understand that our government has done this to Native Americans residents, Chinese immigrants, the waves of southern and eastern European immigrants, and of course (most egregiously) Africans who "immigrated" in chains.  But I thought we had made some progress, at least toward rule of law.

El Candigato!

Online course on the Mexican economy

LeBron von Strauss has already announced this, but Mrs. Angus has done a course of around 50 short videos on Mexico for Marginal Revolution University.

Of course you know this is self-recommending, right?

Here's the first one:





The rest are available here.


  

Let's just say the jury is still out on this one

Wow, Elba Esther Gordillo, aka "La Maestra" esta detenida!

The long time head of the Mexican Teachers Union (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación) has been a powerful retrograde force in Mexican politics, consistently blocking education reform and long rumored to be corrupt.

At least one Mexican "expert" loves the move:

This new development destroys those doubts about the seriousness of the Pena Nieto government to take on the union, and to mobilize the sovereign power of the state against vested interests.


But this is Mexico, where criminalizing political differences is an art form.

La Maestra burned new President Enrique Peña Nieto during the campaign by pulling her political party (the PANAL)out of an alliance with his party (the PRI). And all she wanted to stay in was for multiple family members to be Senators!

So it's far from clear whether this arrest marks a bold move against impunity and a step forward against corruption and toward rule of law, or just the same old "payback's a bitch" political culture at work.

hang up the phone, Calderon

People, I never realized all the dimensions in which Felipe Calderon has been a bad president for Mexico.

This recent article in the Washington Post reveals another; He sold his soul to Elba Esther Gordillo, condemning Mexican public schools to another sexenio of misery.

The article details the misery,

 "The country is a member of the Group of 20 and boasts of the world’s 14th-largest economy, but only a quarter of its children graduate from high school. Sixth-graders in Mexico get 562 hours of “instructional learning” a year. In South Korea, it’s 1,195 hours...


 Yet Mexico’s lame performance is not about money. A generous 20 percent of the country’s budget goes to education, about $30 billion a year. More than 90 percent goes to salaries — negotiated by the teachers union, which dictates policy.


 “It was — and sadly still is — a very corrupt system,” said Carlos Ornelos, a specialist in education at the Autonomous Metropolitan University who was one of the first, in the 1990s, to expose the practice of teachers buying and selling their jobs. An elementary school teaching post, a tenured position for life, still sells for as much as $20,000 in the resort city of Cancun, and a post in a rural village can be had for $2,000, Ornelas said."

Yikes!

Thank you note from Mexican drug cartels

Thanks, Prez O, for taking care of keeping drugs illegal!

Thanks to Angry Alex

A Not Bad At All Mexican Restaurant

T.G. is the man. He felt moved to defend the honor of Erlangen, after reading about the "Worst Mexican Restaurant in the World" incident.

So, we went to La Pasion. Here is the menu (PDF, a download).

It was just fine. First, the chips/dip. You may recall that in the WMRITW this was crackers with ketchup-with-tomatoes. At La Pasion, a perfectly eatable bottled salsa, nothing special, but actual salsa. The guacamole was fine, and they HAD guacamole, which was an improvement.

The food came with beans, canned jalapenos, and fiery little fresh chiles with stems. The quesadillas...well, check the menu. They had...pollo! At the WMRITW the very idea of pollo had been mocked by the waitress, who had insisted only puten (turkey) could be used in Mexican food. But La Pasion lists chicken, pollo, and hanchen, which makes sense for a multi-lingual menu.

And the beer was first rate. A very excellent hefeweisse. (To be fair, even the WMRITW had managed to get that right).

So, overall, a perfectly acceptable Mexican restaurant. Wouldn't survive in Los Angeles, perhaps, but they used ingredients and flavorings that strongly reminded one of Mexican food. One of our party said the food was what you might get if your mom cooked Mexican, but I think that's not right. This was what you might get at Applebees or some chain. In any case, thanks to T.G.! Erlangen's honor is restored. I liked the restaurant very much.

Some questions....

Just some questions that occur to me.

1. Is President Obama going to demand that the U.S. negotiate with Mexico based on the 1840 borders? Are we going to return the occupied "North Bank" of the Rio Grande? After all, it is the traditional home of the Mexican people, many of them speak Spanish, and thousands have crossed the border illegally so they can live in their ancestral homeland. We are putting more and more settlements in the region, but it's not clear that ethnic Mexicans should have to endorse this blatant land grab. I'm sure the French would like Obama him more for insisting on a Mexican "right of return" to this region. And the President appears to be running for President of France.

2. Many of Scotty McCreery's votes, by some estimates up to 60%, came from women in the 40-60 age range. Let me ask this: suppose that Lauren Alaina had won, and most of HER votes had come from 40-60 year old men. Wouldn't we all have found that really creepy? Both Scotty and Lauren are 16, so the comparison is fair. Why is it okay for middle aged women to lurk a 16 year old boy? Ick.

3. Is it the end of the world, for real? People laughed at the folks who thought the world would end on May 21st at 6 pm. But it may still happen. The LMM threw away a pair of shoes, and I don't believe she bought an offsetting new pair. That reduces her reserve to just under 400 pairs of shoes. So, I ask again, is it the end of the world?

ZOMG: Steve Sailer just found out there are "white people" in Mexico

The post is here and well worth reading.

The school in question is Monterrey Tech in Mexico. Robin and I have both taught classes there at the original campus in Monterrey.

It always amazed me when, while we lived in Mexico, people there would frequently criticize the US for racism and then go ballistic when I suggested that a similar phenomenon existed in Mexico.

But people, exist it does. By and large, those photos are what rich Mexicans look like.

The tall & light vs. short & brown divide is immense. I wonder when modern Mexico will get its Alejandro Toledo or Evo Morales (of course they had theirs back in the day, the inimitable Benito Juarez).

I thank an anonymous faithful reader of Sailer's blog for the pointer.

viva la reconquista!

From USA Today:

A new kind of Mexican immigrant is making it big in the USA: huge Mexican corporations that are snapping up U.S. brand names, opening U.S. factories and investing millions of pesos north of the border.

From Thomas' English Muffins to Borden milk, Saks Fifth Avenue department stores to The New York Times newspaper, Mexican investors have taken advantage of low interest rates and depressed prices during the economic downturn to expand their holdings in el norte.

People, Grupo Bimbo (aqui hay Bimbo) owns Entenmann's!

How are those Spanish lessons coming?

Laguna San Ignacio

This video was taken and edited by Mrs. Angus during our trip to Baja to see the gray whales last March. I had to lobby her heavily to agree to let me post it, because the footage is often shaky, due to (a) the movement of the boat and (b) the excitement level of the videographer. It is almost 4 minutes long and the most spectacular footage is at the end.

Enjoy!

te estan buscando, Matador

"The bull charged and matador Christian Hernandez took off — across the ring, over the wall and into controversy.

The admittedly terrified torero was arrested after Sunday's botched bullfight at the Plaza Mexico, apparently for breach of contract, local media reported Monday. He was released after paying a fine.

"There are some things you must be aware of about yourself," the 22-year-old Mexican matador said in a television interview. "I didn't have the ability, I didn't have the balls, this is not my thing."
In a sight rarely seen in the bravado world of bullfighting, Hernandez made a spin with his red cape at the charging bull, then ran across the ring and leapt headlong over the wall to safety, dropping his cape in the process. The crowd hooted in derision.

Several months ago, another bull grievously gored Hernandez in the leg.

Officials did briefly convince Hernandez to return to the ring on Sunday, where he put his hands over his head and pointed upward before he made a second exit, shaking his head.

He later said he would retire from bullfighting."

Cinco de What?

Here are my favorite Cinco de Mayo songs.

First, the incomparable Liz Phair:

Next, the comparable Lil Rob:



Finally, it turns out that Obama's Spanish is even worse than Mungowitz's!

Earth day special: the bravest eco-warriors

No, people, it's not the Greenpeace dudes ramming whaling boats with their rubber dinghies. It's not the folks who chain themselves to bulldozers at construction sites.

It's the bicyclists of Mexico City!

Mrs. A and I lived in that lovely metropolis for 2+ years and I would rather be slathered with honey and walk through a grizzly bear exhibit than cycle on the streets of Chilangolandia!

"every Ecobici user interviewed said they are gravely concerned about drivers who don't follow rules that allow cyclists to have their own lane. They told of near misses with buses, aggressive drivers leaning on their horns, cars on sidewalks, cars going the wrong way on one-way streets, virtual mayhem at traffic circles.

"Nobody respects the bicyclist," said Gustavo Gonzalez, slipping an Ecobici from a downtown rack. "But I like it. It's a very good program. I wish they'd extend it further.""

So on this earth day let us salute Gustavo Gonzalez and his bike riding cuates: the bravest eco-warriors ever.

Spring break is great for meeting new friends

 

Above is a shot of a gray whale breaching in Laguna San Ignacio. The whale is 40+ feet long, and Mrs. Angus and I are close by in a 20 foot long open fishing boat the locals call a panga! We were about 30 feet away when she busted this move. San Ignacio is reputed to have so called "friendly" whales who will swim right up to a boat and interact with the human occupants. These stories are true as I will show later on with further pictures.

Drug war over: We win!!

hat tip to Art Carden!

Go South Old Man!

From the every informative USA Today

"It sounds almost too good to be true: a health care plan with no limits, no deductibles, free medicines, tests, X-rays, eyeglasses, even dental work — all for a flat fee of $250 or less a year.

To get it, you just have to move to Mexico.

As the United States debates an overhaul of its health care system, thousands of American retirees in Mexico have quietly found a solution of their own, signing up for the health care plan run by the Mexican Social Security Institute."

There's gotta be a catch, right? Right!

The system has flaws, the facilities aren't cutting-edge, and the deal may not last long because the Mexican government said in a recent report that it is "notorious" for losing money. But for now, retirees say they're getting a bargain.

and

The IMSS plan is primarily designed to support Mexican taxpayers who have been paying into the system for decades, and officials say they don't want to be overrun by bargain-hunting foreigners.

Oh.

Well, for the time being at least, I think our most cost effective form of health care reform is mandatory Spanish lessons for the elderly!!

Or, as Mrs. Angus put it, health care runs downhill. Canadians come here, we go to Mexico, Mexicans go to ..........??